


Over the glowing hill (I will conquer)

by Elpinice



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe – Human, Aromatic!Percy, F/F, F/M, M/M, Not a romance, Oral Sex, Piper has a band, Slice of Life, Strong Friendships, Vaginal Sex, basically Annabeth´s life from 12 to roughly 30 maybe, bi!Annabeth, didn´t wanna make a romance, just a slice of life, non-defined relationships, soft, whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-22 02:47:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16589369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elpinice/pseuds/Elpinice
Summary: She saw him on the other side of the street in Brooklyn, right in front of a greengrocery, in the middle of summer.She was twenty and her hair was cut short above her ears. Piper and her were on their way to Thalia, sangria and oranges in her bag, Piper carried the melon.He talked to the man weighing his apples, laughed loudly, his hair as messy as it was with twelve.He changed, she was able to see that much even across the streets. He seemed confident and happy, both adjectives that never applied to the boy from seven years ago.Or:The all-human AU with Annabeth´s ordinary, wonderful life in more or less detailed episodes, from twelve to thirty, told with a more and less important focus on a guy named Percy in it.





	1. One: Twelve to Twenty

She didn´t like him.

It wasn´t his fault, he didn´t even say or do something that was remotely impolite or rude. She was twelve and didn´t like anybody, didn´t want to like anybody after Thalia moved away, especially not strange boys that showed up at her home out of nowhere, no matter how tragic the circumstances (his mother was shot in an ally on her way home by a thief and was put in an artificial coma).

Her mother didn´t exactly approve of him either, so that was that.

She mostly ignored him, read her books, went to school and her after school activities. Between fencing, drawing lessons and math club she barely saw him anyways outside breakfast and dinner, so he wasn´t that much of an intruder in her scheduled week.

Problem was, he was there on the weekends too, especially Sundays, when she stayed home and catched up with her mother, did her homework and just sat in the living room, reading and sometimes watching TV. (Her mother didn´t approve much of this, too, so it was mostly restricted to CNN and reportages, which were fine with Annabeth.)

He was home on most weekends, sitting in the garden (She watched him feeding stray cats more than once, although her mother forbid it, because ‘those verminous beasts will never leave if you feed them once’. Annabeth didn´t do anything though. She liked the cats. Not that she told mother that.) or playing with the boy from next door, who had the same name as the blue monster muppet. Sometimes he would sit inside with her, because it was too warm outside or raining.

(Though he seemed to like the rain, more often than not he went out, who-knows-where, coming back soaking wet, which pissed the housekeeper off, `cause she had to mope everything he walked on again. Signora Sofia liked him, in her old lady way, so she wasn´t really pissed (Annabeth could tell, she spoke with her the same way), and he always rushed to help her, after he changed into dry clothes, nodding apologetically under her ever-present italian telling-off. He always called her “Mrs. Di Angelo”, no matter how often she scolded him for that (“I am _Signora Sofia_ , bambino.”))

And three months into his stay at her home he started sitting with her in the same room on Sundays. He wasn´t able to be still, he fiddled and talked and acted restlessly in his corner of the room, which he seemed to choose as base camp.

(Her territory was the sofa and the floor between it and the TV.)

He stared out the floored-length window, played with a stupid card game, stupid action figures, read comics, always moving in some way, never still. It bugged her, not to say _pissed her off_ , because she needed her space and silence to concentrate.

(Percy seemed to ignore his grades and, even more annoying, didn´t even care about them in the first place.)

But he didn´t go away, no matter how politely-rude Annabeth told him to shut up or play somewhere else. He would apologize to her and be silent for three minutes tops, before bumping his knee against the window or muttering the dialogs of his comic books under his breath again.

She couldn´t really go somewhere else, because she was here first and it was _her_ home, _her_ living room he invaded with his stupid face. So she stayed stubbornly and tried to ignore him, biting her lips in the effort of not yelling and insulting him, `cause her mother was in the room next door and his mother lied comatose in a hospital for an indefinite time.

_________________________

 

The change came couple of months later, when it was snowing outside for the first time of the year, in big fluffy flakes. It was a Sunday and he was outside, building a horde of snowmen. She turned thirteen a few weeks ago and had to endure him on her party, sitting next to her friends, eating three plates of everything and smiling stupidly at his own jokes, before knocking her birthday candles over. (She won´t ever forgive him for setting the table on fire.)

She sat inside in front of the fireplace and read a book about Cleopatra the seventh, not hearing the ring of her phone at first. It was her cousin, Malcolm. (He liked architecture too. They didn´t talk on the phone regularly, but from time to time he called.) He was from the Greek side of her mother’s family, who moved to the States some years ago. Annabeth liked Greece the two times she went with her mother, and she liked the language. (Her mother insisted she learned it, and because it was just another piece of knowledge, she soaked it in like a sponge.) Malcolm and she usually talked in Greek, because he missed it and she liked the practice.

They were talking for half an hour, when Percy came in, red cheeks and nose, a small smile all over his face, and she sighed in the phone, so Mal asked her what´s on. And then she realized, she could cuss and beef about Percy while being in the same room as him and he wouldn´t even notice _a thing_. She could get all of the annoyance out of her system without the danger of hurting Percy or getting a hard glance of her mother, because she seemed to have the swearword detector only in English. Plus, it was kind of fun to talk with Malcolm. (Not just about Percy.)

And from there on Malcolm and she had a regular Sunday phone date, for which she even rescheduled an hour of her reading time to Saturday.

It was kind of glorious in a mean and funny way. (In her defense, she was thirteen and stupid.) They would call and talk about their week, Annabeth would tell Mal what stupid thing Percy had done this time and how he got on her nerves and Malcolm would laugh and tell her she´s exaggerating. (Which she did, because then Mal always laughed like he forgot all his worries about his little sister, who got bullied in school.) Percy sometimes stayed in the living room while they talked, almost silently, playing or reading or staring out of the window (seriously, was there something so fascinating in the garden?) and looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

(The first day Mal called, he had looked puzzled and stared, stopped dead in his track, till she has asked what he was staring at, and he just shrugged after a moment and sat in his corner.)

She continued this for almost the whole time he stayed in her home.

Sally got better and was woken up after six months, and after she could leave the hospital, after more weeks and weeks, they stayed in the villa for nearly another year, until she could walk and breathe without help again and Signora Sofia and Annabeth´s mother would let her out of their sight.

(Percy`s dad was a distant-distant-something cousin of her mother (Greek side (Percy was basically related to Malcolm, too)) and after he had left Sally and their unborn son for the sake of a trip across the oceans she settled in the same town as Annabeth´s mother for coincidences sake. There they met in the night Annabeth was born, in an elevator that had stood still in the exact moment the contractions had started, because of the storm that had been raging outside. The hours they waited for the elevator to run again and the doctor to arrive, they discovered their weird connection and their mutual sickness of the unreliable men in their lives. After this they stayed in loose contact over the years. Her mother had sworn, over a puddle of blood and a crying baby in a scarf, if Sally would ever need her help, she would do everything. (She was there when Percy was born, fortunately in a hospital.) Friendship tied over a birth in a freezing elevator in the middle of the night seemed to bond two people in a way.)

They moved out on a cold day.

Signora Sofia hugged Percy for an eternity. Annabeth had never seen a boy disappear in the arms of an old woman like this. He didn’t protest, not one second, he clung to her like his life depended on it, hiding his face in her apron. Sally looked pale and wobbly in her too big coat but otherwise happy. Her lungs would never be the same again, Annabeth knew, she had heard her and her mother in quiet nights over the floor through her open door. Percy seemed to know that too, because he grabbed every little piece of box she dared to touch and carried it to the moving van.

The biting wind made his hair stand up even more than usual until Annabeth pulled her own woolen cap over his head in a burst of sentiment and generosity. He smiled shyly at her, fingertips lingering on the red cap, almost cute with his red cheeks and the obvious embarrassment by her sudden affection. Almost.

She and her mother waved them goodbye, until they couldn´t see the car anymore.

_________________________

 

She didn´t see him for the next seven years.

She finished high school a year early, valedictorian, her mother proud and smiling in the crowd.

She went to Greece, travelled for eight months, on her own on the islands and the sea, windblown hair, and got a tan that she carried back home.

She started college at NYU, architecture and history, found new friends, visited her mother and Signora Sofia at home.

Sometimes she thought about Percy, the scrawny little boy with these big eyes and the restless behavior. She felt sorry for being rude and cold back then, but it wasn´t more than a little sting that she forgot as soon as a new assignment was on her table or the next party winked on the weekend.

Piper was her first friend at NYU, bright and gorgeous and majoring in art, then math, then psychology, followed by international communication, before switching to music. Piper introduced her to her best friends, Jason and Leo. With Jason she sat in their history lessons, concentrated, focused, dry jokes whispered under their breath. She danced with them in the morning in her dorm room, learned in the library, drank too much coffee and whined about finals. She soon moved in with Piper, finally out of the tiny, awful dorm. Through Jason she met Reyna, the fiercest, strongest women she´d ever met besides her mother, they jogged together three times a week.

She slept with a bunch of guys and some girls, mostly in damp dorm rooms and sometimes in the shadows of an alley besides a club, whispering praises in each other’s ears, feeling hot and shivering.

She fell in love with a guy with soft brown eyes and tender hands, and they were together, uncomplicated, easy, and soft, until he had to leave and went back to Australia. After that she decided not to date anymore.

One month later, she found Thalia on accident, in a coffee shop between two classes, both of them speechless in their surprise and bright in their happiness. They got together seven weeks after this.

_________________________

 

She saw him on the other side of the street in Brooklyn, right in front of a greengrocery, in the middle of summer.

She was twenty and her hair was cut short above her ears. Piper and her were on their way to Thalia, sangria and oranges in her bag, Piper with a  melon.

He talked to the man weighing his apples, laughed loudly, his hair as messy as it was with twelve. She didn´t recognize him at first, just turned to see who laughed that loud and free. He was bigger and older. She stared, taken by surprise, how he joked with the man and fiddled with the money. It was a hot day and he was in shorts and a tank, hair short in the back and a curly mess on the top. She thought about calling his name, saying hello for old time´s sake, but she didn´t. Instead she watched him, tried to puzzle the man there together with the boy, whom she gossiped so much about with Malcolm.

(Malcolm lived in Greece, had returned there right after high school. They didn´t have much contact outside of Christmas and holiday cards.)

He changed, she was able to see that much even across the streets. He seemed confident and happy, both adjectives that never applied to the boy from seven years ago.

He wasn´t alone, there was a guy with him, waiting next to the store, reading a magazine. Annabeth didn´t notice him before Percy paid and got over to him, grinning and handing him an apple. He was skinny, with dark hair and olive skin. They looked good together, at ease with each other, like best friends sometimes do, and a little bit like brothers, with the same hair color and nearly the same height.

That they were, in fact, not just best friends dawned Annabeth only when Percy put an arm around the shoulders of the guy and kissed him.

She was surprised, but on the other hand she never known him well and hadn´t seen him in years. She smiled to herself, wondering shortly how Mrs. Jackson was. Percy and his boyfriends vanished behind a corner and she just stood there, thinking of the little boy and his ill mother, unable to shake off the lingering uneasy feeling.

She forgot about it between the second glass of sangria, Piper´s drunken giggles and Thalia´s bright smile.

The next time she met him, it was two years later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´ve had immensely fun with mean and angry pre-teen Annabeth. I like to think she grew out of it. 
> 
> The protagonists in my stories tend to be around my own age, because I think this way I´m best at being able to represent them and their thoughts in a believable way. Being a twenty-something is both very terrifying and exciting for me and I let something of this slip in Annabeth´s life.  
> So, this story is kind of like new territory for me, because at some point Annabeth gets older than I am now.


	2. Two: Twenty-One to Twenty-Five

Thalia and she broke up after two years, three months and ten days being together, Annabeth twenty-one and Thalia twenty-eight.

They both cried. It had been wild and brilliant, what they had, full of love and care, breathtaking kisses and shameless moans, overflowing laughter and stormy arguments.

Annabeth learned that sometimes it just won´t work, that sometimes nobody can fix it and you have to say goodbye or you only get more hurt. They stayed in touch, Thalia joined a group of bikers and drove through the country, sending letters and postcards.

Annabeth continued college, ate ice-cream with Piper on the couch, and fooled around for a bit. She came over it.

_________________________

 

In a break between college and an internship she stayed at home for two weeks. When she arrived, Signora Sofia didn´t pull her in a bone breaking hug as soon as she opened the door, how she had done every time in the last years. Instead her mother looked at her with sad eyes and told her in her stern voice, that Signora Sofia died a week ago in her bed. She just had gone to bed and never woke up.

She was old and it had been peaceful, her mother told her, but that didn´t stop Annabeth from feeling betrayed, from choking on the bitter ache in her chest, full of memories of her childhood with pasta, Italian yelling and fond smiles, warm hugs and the ever-present smell of old lady soap.

She had relied on Signora Sofia more than she realized before, relied on her warm presence in the cold, big house, her love, that had filled Annabeth´s life before she had moved out, and maybe even after, because no matter how long she would be gone, _Signora Sofia_ would be there to welcome her _home_. (Her mother wasn´t exactly the kind of person who could be described as heartwarming.)

She went with her mother to the funeral, ashamed for her growing absence in the last years, for not knowing more about the woman, when she saw the crowd in front of the little church. It was like the whole neighborhood was there, little kids running around, men crying on the shoulder of their wives, women holding each other, the old ones watching them out of mournful, tired eyes. Sofia Di Angelo`s family was big, much bigger than Annabeth had known, she´d always just been _her_ Signora Sofia, her holy godmother and the good spirit in the big villa. She realized Sofia Di Angelo had been that for everyone, for her family, for her sons and daughters, grandchildren and the children of them, for her neighbors and strangers. The little lost girl in the too big house was just another soul to be rescued.

She was ashamed of wanting her for her own, of selfishly wanting her back so _she_ could hug her, when she heard a girl crying for her _nanna_ , for her lullaby, _please, nanna_ , and saw a boy around her own age, comforting the girl. He was nearly crying himself, his eyes dark and dull, shadows under it.

She didn´t realize right away, his hair was longer now and tied to a bun, his face shaped in a mask of grief and loss, so different from the happiness he had radiated on the summer day back then.

It was the guy she had seen with Percy two years ago.

She wanted to go to him, talk to him, but what would she tell him? _Hi, I´m Annabeth and she was my housekeeper for as long as I can think, and I miss her, give her back to me, please?_

She shook her head, and then, for the first time since her mother had said “ _Signora Sofia is dead, Annabeth”_ , just when the guy picked up the girl and walked away, Percy came to her mind.

She wanted to slap herself. She needed to see his boyfriend to be reminded of Percy and his love for this beautiful woman, who had made him pancakes in the depth of the night, when he couldn´t sleep. (Signora Sofia had caught her peeking through the open door and winked at her, told her the next morning to look after the boy. Annabeth had frowned and was ashamed for her jealousy.) She wondered for a moment, if he knew about her death, if he was here, if her mother had informed Sally and him, if she should have done it, before she wanted to slap herself again, because of course he knew, his boyfriend was here and seemingly part of the family.

She and her mother stood in the back while the pastor held his speech. The church was full, there were not enough seats in this little building to hold all the people. Annabeth feared it would crumble under all the grief and tears, too small to hold this much of love. People were standing on the sides, next to her in the back, the benches overloaded. She saw the guy again, sitting in the front rows, and there, on his right, was Percy. She weren´t able to see much of him, just his back, his tense shoulders in a black suit.

She found Sally in the crowd too. She stood on the right side, a man in a tweed jacket next to her. She looked nearly the same as nine years ago, but healthier and older. The man held a little blond girl in his arms.

After the ceremony, the crowd flowed out of the church, parting in different directions, but many people wandered to the graveyard right next to the church, watched how the coffin was buried. Annabeth watched Percy.

He looked uncomfortable in the suit, clutching the hand of his boy, but he held his head high, as if he wanted to compensate the emptiness in his face. She had expected the same expression on his face as the many around were wearing, a mix of grief, sadness and tiredness. But there was just this, emptiness, a blank, stony mask. His boyfriend had exactly the same pulled on.

She wanted to know where he had been all these years, how he had been, when he´d learn to mask his feeling like this. But she was afraid of going there. She avoided Sally and her little family, excused herself from her mother, when she went to greet them. She didn´t want to- she didn´t know, what she didn´t want.

Instead she hid in the mass of black suits and dresses, felt lonely. She thought about calling Piper or Thalia, but didn´t. She thought about home and her tenth birthday and Signora Sofia´s laugh when Annabeth did cartwheels in the garden, but didn’t cry. She just stood there and watched the grief of the others, tried to decide where her place between them was, but didn´t approach anyone.

She watched and walked around, and looked and remained silent.

Percy found her sitting on the small wall dividing the graveyard from the church grounds. She had looked up, into the tree and its endless green above her, and when she´d lowered her head again, he was sitting beside her, hands in his pockets.

She held her breath, surprised, blindsided. He just faced her, then nodded, like a casual greeting, as if their last meeting hadn´t been an eternity ago, as if nine years hadn´t passed since they talked the last time.

She forced a smile in his direction, didn´t know what else to do.

He started talking without a warning.

“She was so proud of you.” She was startled by his voice, deep, rough, too loud in her empty head. “Always talked about her little wise girl, conquering the world.” His eyes were deep too, green like the tree above. He watched her calmly, waiting for something, unreadable.

She nodded. He looked away.

They sat side by side, watched the crowd. Everyone was still in front of the church, talking, silently hugging each other, nobody seemed to want to go yet. Percy´s gaze was fixed on his boyfriend.

She struggled to say something, just something, just one word. She took a deep breath.

“She was proud of you too. She told me once how you´ve got a job. Nearly knocked over the saucepan, because she gesticulated so much.”

Percy choked a laugh out on her words, obviously surprised himself by the sound. A moment there were silence. Then they started snickering. And just like that the tension eased out of Annabeth´s shoulders a bit.

“How have you been?”, she asked him, watched her mother talking to Sally.

He shrugged. “You know, living. School, college, work.” She nodded. Sounded familiar.

She didn´t fool herself and thought they would be friends because they met again and talked for nearly twenty minutes, but couldn´t stop herself from thinking that she would like that to happen.

She thought she could like him, his easy composure, his kind words, his humor. She never knew him back then, when they were living together, when they were bickering over nonsense, when they lived some years of their childhoods next to each other.

She didn´t know him now either, he was a stranger with great hair and a little half-sister (he told her) and a job in a record store (he told her too) and a handsome boyfriend (he didn´t tell her and didn´t need to). And to him, she was just a stranger majoring in architecture (she told him), who lived in a tiny apartment with her best friend (she told him too) and didn´t miss her ex-girlfriend as much as she thought she should (she didn´t tell him that).

She told him about her months in Greece, about the sea and the people and how much she had loved traveling. She had nearly forgotten how much. He got a funny look while he listened, like he thought of a secret too good to share.

They didn´t talk for long. He didn´t exactly smile once in their brief encounter, but nodded at her as a goodbye. Neither of them pretended and said stuff like _Let´s stay in touch_. They were strangers.

Annabeth found herself regretting that she hadn´t liked him back then and now didn´t have the chance to be his friend anymore. That she hadn´t looked after him, like Signora Sofia had told her.

She watched him go back to his boyfriend, watched them holding hands, whispering, reaching into each other´s space. Suddenly she was reminded of soft brown eyes and tender hands, and she closed her eyes at the sharp pain behind her rips.

_________________________

 

She finished her master project two years later.

They celebrated after the final presentation; she sang on Pipers side, danced with Jason, Leo and Reyna, kissed Leo and laughed afterwards at his stupid face with Calypso. (Thalia called, screamed happily through the phone from somewhere in Texas.) They went to a bar, got drunk while playing pool, then travelled to the next pub and danced until the sun started to come up again. They watched the sunrise, sitting on a roof. She felt happy and alive. She didn´t think about brown eyes or Thalia´s smile, just kissed the cute guy next to her and grinned at his beaming smile.

_________________________

 

She left New York and her college life behind some weeks later and moved to California.

She got an internship in an architecture firm there. It was hard, leaving her friends, her city and her mother, but it was not so bad, because Jason moved there too (he grew up there, in some sort of orphanage with summer camps and military drill and weird dress codes) and Piper jetted through the whole country with her band, more often than not staying on the west coast.

(Piper and Jason shared a friendship Annabeth always envied a bit. They knew each other since high school, where they had been a couple for most of junior year. They had been together at one point in college again, Piper utterly in love with Jason, in her own way, free and sweet and caring, and Jason in his calm, steady, silent way of reliability. But it hadn´t worked out, and soon after Annabeth and Piper had moved in together, they broke up. Now they were each other´s anchor, helping each other through everything, always staying in touch.)

She was happy in California. She met new people, loved her job and the hard work, liked her small flat. It consisted basically of the tiniest balcony and two rooms, one stuffed with a big bed she built herself, the other nearly empty, save for the kitchenette, her huge desk and a small couch.

For a couple of months, she dated Bill, a middle-aged man twenty years older than her, felt at peace in his beach house and his embrace. When she rode him, to the sound of distant waves, night all around them, she felt young and calm; his palms on her waist and ass, marveling at her skin with slow touches and glances, made her feel like a siren, powerful and beautiful. He eventually got back together with his ex-wife, but she didn´t blame him, just felt a vague joy for him and slight pity for herself.

She didn´t think much about Percy.

Sometimes, when she was sitting under a tree, though, she looked up and thought of his eyes. And one time, she was sitting by the windows in Bill´s living room and watched the sea for hours, she remembered how Percy always had looked out the windows on Sundays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) So, I gave Nico a grandmother. The story goes something like this: Sofia´s late husband had an affair and one day the woman stood in front of Sofia´s door, thrusting a baby into her arms. Sofia raised her like her own daughter. And when young Maria di Angelo ran off to Italy, Sofia´s home country, just to come back with a little toddler and a baby boy, she gave them all a home. She held Bianca´s and Nico´s hands, when they buried Maria after she died in a car accident. She held the hand of a tiny ten-year-old Nico, when his sister was laid to rest next to their mother. She smiled, when Percy and Nico held hands in her kitchen.   
> 2) I want to include snippets of Leo´s and Piper´s friendship too, but haven´t found the right mo-ment yet. They´re just as close as Piper and Jason. They initially bonded over a toilet paper prank in middle school, leaving them in two weeks detention together, during that they had enough time to struck up their unholy alliance in the name of chaos. To this day there are rumors circulating under the students about The Principle´s Car In The Pool On The Day Of The Big Swim Meet. (Which got them expelled.)


	3. Three: Twenty-Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here now, all the sex! it was fun, though sex scenes are hard (pun intended). Hope you like it.

They met again four years after Signora Sofia´s funeral.

On Annabeth´s twenty-sixth birthday Piper and her band had a gig in town and she and Jason got VIP-tickets. (Leo was so mad that he had to work.) They danced in the crowd, laughed at Piper´s stupid jokes and sang every song by heart, sending Leo short videos. On the afterparty in a club near the beach they continued dancing, pressed together on the dance floor.

This time, she realized on first glance.

It was the boy, Percy´s boy, he was there, right next to Piper and Jason. He danced with closed eyes, a smile on his face, a blond guy behind him.

Annabeth stared for a moment too long - because how was this happening? She was on the other side of the continent, for god´s sake - Jason caught on her look. He turned and immediately began screaming, hugging Percy´s boy.

It turned out, Nico had spent one summer in Jason´s boot camp orphanage thing when he was a kid, befriending Jason, but soon after losing contact.

The blond guy introduced himself as _Will, the significant annoyance_ , whereupon Nico just put his head in his head and sighed. Piper had stifled her laugh with a cough.

They too lived in New York at it turned out, they just visited Nico´s sister in California. The small village her world apparently was gave Annabeth a headache.

She couldn´t bring herself to ask Nico about Percy or Sofia, though. He seemed to be Will´s boy now and to start a conversation about his dead grandmother seemed just cruel. So, she stayed silent, laughed at their jokes, chatted with Will about medicine and architecture. Hold back her curiosity.

 

The next week she ran into Percy.

She was at the same club, this time alone, buzzed, searching for adrenalin and sex, touch starved and lonely. She saw him before he saw her. He was on the dance floor, grinding his hips against Nico, smirking and laughing.

Annabeth danced near them, unable to tear her eyes off them.

When they kissed, smiling and heated and sloppy, she looked away, embarrassed of her stalking and the building heat between her legs. Where was Will, the significant annoyance? How was Percy _here_ , in her club, in California, right next to her?

When she looked at them again, Percy stared right back.

She froze. He blinked.

Will appeared behind him, holding a beer, bowed down to kiss Nico. Percy turned to them, screamed something over the music and then approached her. He grinned and she couldn´t but smile back.

For a moment, they just stood there in the crowd and smiled at each other like idiots. Percy nodded towards the exit.

Outside, where the music was a faint buzz, Percy hugged her, sweaty, sweet, and short, just like that, like he couldn´t hold back and greeted everybody like that.

They got a drink and talked, caught up with their lives, like they had been friends a long time ago. The alcohol did its magic, loosening their tongues. That they weren´t on a funeral this time certainly helped.

They got up to dance again after some time, both edgy and restless. Annabeth felt like jumping out of her skin every second she had to sit still.

Will and Nico greeted her on the dance floor, Will hugging her, Nico waving shyly, something fragile in his eyes, a confused Percy next to him. She only laughed, took Nico by the hand and danced, jumped, and swayed with him, until he finally closed his eyes, the smile on his face loose and peaceful again.

She closed her eyes too, felt the bass thrumming through her veins and the heat boiling in her chest, heard Percy´s laugh next to her. Whenever she looked at him, she wanted to kiss him, wanted to taste the sweat on his lips and bring his face down to her. She didn´t.

Not because she was afraid. But because right then, it was enough to dance and see Nico´s smile and Will´s terrible dance moves, to feel hot under Percy´s gaze and to relish her sudden longing for him.

She lost track of time, forgot her intention of a finding someone for the night.

On one point she grinded against Will, then Nico, teasingly, swaying her hips with mocked intention. Nico blushed, Will laughed loudly and drunken. She turned to Percy, still giggling.

His hands were on her hips before she even fully faced him, pulling her into his space, his scent, beat her to the punch and rubbed his lower body against her. The air was pressed out of her lungs and she felt her ears redden. He grinned and forced her to dance again, his fingers on her skin right above her shorts.

She heard Will and Nico hollering behind her, Percy´s carefree laugh.

Her embarrassment melted away as fast as it had built.

Her belly clenched hard as Percy´s hands gripped her tighter and followed her swinging movements. He challenged her, mischief bright in his eyes, stepped away from her, just to snicker when she immediately pulled him back in. Annabeth bathed in the heat of the moment and smiled widely up to him, unashamed of her obvious want. She wanted to lick the salt of his collarbones.

They shifted around each other, never really apart, testing the waters, while their hips met and their hands searched the safe grounds. It was a game, a bet, for how long they could pretend to just dance, baiting the other to give in and break down the last inches of space between them.

Annabeth was stubborn, always had been, and he seemed to be too. It was like their Sundays from back then, when neither would give up their ground in the living room.

They got a new round of drinks, including various shots, fueling their laughter, nobody wanting this night to end yet.

One, two hours later she watched Will and Nico kissing, both bashed and no longer aware of the crowd around them, making out right there next to them. She only would have to raise her hand to feel Will´s curls, to put her fingertip on the wet spot in his neck, where his hair was darker with sweat.

She didn´t bother to look away or hide her arousal. Her walls of polite distance were long flooded with all the booze and the feeling of Percy´s fingertips, which never seemed to leave her skin anymore, dancing on her shoulders and upper back and hips, making her dizzy.

They had to stand very close to each other, impossible to avoid skin contact. The club was packed, who forced them to constantly bump into each other.

Percy´s gaze roamed over the front of her soaked top, the curve of her breasts, glanced over to Will and Nico, back to her shoulders, her lips. His eyes were dark, his shirt was wet, his jeans tight, and sex poured out of every pore of his body.

And she just _wanted_ so hard.

Just wanted with every fiber of _her_ body to wrap her legs around him, his grip tight on her ass, hurting her in all the right ways, shoving into her, hot, so fucking hot under her hands, wanted to crash their bodies together like they were waves in a storm. He should moan her name into her skin when he´d pick up the pace and push into her, hard, _harder_ , and she´d pull at his hair, biting down on these damn lips, spreading her legs even wider.

She shut her eyes and shuddered head to toe, whimpering helplessly at the thought, right at the pause of a song.

The next moment Percy swore under his breath and her eyes flew open.

She caught a glimpse of Nico and Will staring at her, startled out of their embrace by her needy sound, and then Percy was there, crashing into her with full force, his lips hard on hers, his nails scraping deep into the skin of her waist.

She moaned into him. Her fists clenched his shirt as she pushed back, clung to him aggressively.

She heard Nico curse, something like _holy shit_ , but Percy found her ass and she found his hair and she forgot about the others, drowned in the feeling of Percy´s hot mouth on hers, the feeling of conquer and victory.

She didn´t know how long they kissed.

Eventually she needed air again and yanked her head back, breathing hard. Percy didn´t even blink, his pupils blown wide, before he bent down and bit her neck, on the edge of painful, sharp teeth followed by a soft tongue.

Will and Nico still watched them. She didn´t notice the hand in her hair until then, Nico´s fingers absently caressing the waves. She doubted he even realized what he was doing. One of Will´s hands lied on Percy´s lower back, where his shirt was ridden up.

Annabeth didn´t think. She felt so good and didn´t even bother to be confused about their weird formation. It felt good, _good_. That was enough.

She threw her head back and burst into laughter. Percy faced her again and grinned, bright and toothy. Nico and Will googled them confused.

“Let´s get out of here”, she shouted over the music, still smiling like mad, and grabbed Nico´s hand out of her hair.

She was halfway through the crowd, Nico behind her with Percy on his heels, when the first beats of one of Piper´s songs boomed through the room.

Annabeth stopped dead in her track, Nico nearly crashing into her.

It was _Bedrooms Hymns_ , the song about sex and lust and _can´t getting enough_ , and she wanted to laugh all over again, because what were the odds that it would play right then and there. She missed Piper hard for a moment.

She turned to the boys and motioned _, only this song_. Somehow, they understood her.

So, she closed her eyes.

Threw her hands above her head and danced.

Her hips hit Percy´s, Will´s elbow brushed her shoulder and Nico mouthed the lyrics into her collarbone, her arms around his shoulders.

The first refrain hit them and they jumped, everybody jumped, the whole room seemed to be drunken. Piper´s voice shot through her body and she sang with her.

Percy was behind her, his cheek against her hair, his groin pressed against her ass, swinging with her, sticking to her. He was singing too, barely audible over the music. The boundaries from before were gone, the kiss had torn them apart. They kissed again and again, whenever they danced across each other, fleeting touches on cheeks, lips and temples, hands and neck.

Will somehow ended in her arms in the second verse and stayed for the refrain. They stomped the rhythm in the floor.

The bridge goaded them, and for a moment she stood still, before slowly increasing her movements and the curves of her ass, like she did with Piper in their apartment in New York, ages ago, after the first gig of Piper´s band.

Nico grabbed Percy by the wrist, right before the last refrain, on the edge before the peak, before they all jumped, and for a moment, he looked like he was going to kiss him. The moment faded in a heartbeat, Nico´s eyes on her. She wanted to tell him _just kiss him, he´s yours, I just met him, please, don´t be afraid because of me_ , because he looked more like the boy at the funeral than the boy on the summer day, and this wasn´t right even if it was only for a second.

But before she could muster any courage, he smiled, and then the room shook and they jumped.

___________

 

They stumbled out of the club into the cold air of the night. It was still dark, but the streetlights shaded everything in a weird shadowy light. Nico looked like a ghoul, the smoke of Will´s cigarette blurred his face and made all the sharp edges smooth.

He watched her, how she never let go of Percy´s hand, and she felt strangely okay with it. It was like he was making sure _she_ was ok and comfortable.

She dragged them along to her flat, slurring about wine and crackers. They snickered giddily and followed. The last hundred yards she started running and it became a race, with Will as victor, surprisingly (but actually, not really), Nico and Annabeth right behind him, toppling over with laughter because of Percy´s swearing.

She didn´t find the keys immediately, what Nico and Will took for reason enough to make out next to her door, fumbling at each other´s clothes. Percy´s breath ghosted over her shoulders.

Inside, they fell on her couch and the futon she hadn´t put away since Piper had stayed. She put music on, beats similar to the club, but slower, got a bottle and poured them wine into tea pots.

They danced some more.

Will fell asleep sometime, his head buried in one of Annabeth´s dirty jumpers he found on the floor. Nico joined him soon. They curled around each other like cats, snoring softly into each other´s hair, bathed in the blush pink light of the dawn.  

Percy and she danced on with the cups in their hands, dreamy, leisurely.

She kissed him, tasting like wine and smoke.

“Come”, she said and pulled him into her bedroom. The door shut with a bang behind them.

 

It was glorious

Annabeth burned under Percy´s touch, ripping at his jeans and shirt, desperate for skin contact. They fell on the bed, still in half their clothes, rutting and moaning. From there on, everything were a blur, tuned with a song full of low beats and slow pulsing.

He whispered her name, a prayer, a plea, on the skin between her breasts, before he moved down and took her apart with slow-paced, languid patience. His fingers deep inside her and his breath hot on the inside of her thighs, he pushed her over the edge.

He was beautiful, lying there between her legs, glazed eyes and disheveled hair, his lips shining, his other hand curled around his cock.

She shifted and took him into her mouth, shivered at his groan. She was nearly vibrating in her need for more touch. From somewhere he produced a condom and lube.

They exhaled unisono when he was fully inside her, his right palm on her thigh, pressing down, the other next to her head. She started to move, urged him on, hot and impatient, and finally wrapped her legs around his waist.

She was a mess of loud, enthusiastic consent, a chorus of _more_ and _yes_ , and searched for something to hold onto - her hair, his hair, the sheets - as he fucked her, until he caught her wrists and pinned her down, always asking ‘Okay?’ under his ragged breath.

She started lifting her ass in synch with him, but soon he grabbed her by the hips with so much force, that she simply _couldn´t_. The moan that escaped her was embarrassingly satisfied, but she was too far gone to care, and encouraged him with a choked _harder_.

His whole body was strained in effort. A cruel, vicious version of his smile lurked in the corner of his mouth, and she wondered for a moment, how sex with him would be when he was _angry_. Even now, pleasure and glee glinting in his eyes, he was brutal, all languidness and game vanished and replaced with an untamed hunger.

When he came and his hips stilled, she watched him breaking apart above her, his mouth slack and his eyes shut tight. He was breathtaking.

She didn´t come again, the alcohol taking its toll. Exhaustion and satisfaction flushed through her as he fell down on her, already half asleep.

He whispered her name again, his face nuzzled in her armpit and his soft cock pressed to her knee. She murmured back, fuzzy nonsense, before sleep took her away.

 ___________

 

She woke up sometime later, the sun burning on her face and her bladder screaming, a headache splitting her head in two. She got up, not really awake, and drew the curtains until it was a bearable degree of darkness in the room. Percy were asleep, drooling onto her pillow. He must´ve been awake at some point, though, because the condom was gone.

She absently put on old panties and her worn sleeping shirt and patted into the bathroom, her head spinning, past Will and Nico, who were splayed all over the floor next to the couch, somehow half naked.

When she came back, Nico was sitting up, his hair standing in every direction and his eyelids not quite open. He squinted up to her, goosebumps on his bare chest and arms.

She grunted in his direction and disappeared in her bedroom for a moment, before coming back with two big shirts, and kneeled in front of him. He stared a moment before he took one and put it on, looking lost and young with his disheveled hair.

She put a hand on his calve and nodded towards the open door of the bedroom, but he scrunched his nose in confusion. He quietly said _Will_ and she smiled, already turning and shaking the blond softly awake.

Will mumbled incoherently (something about a missing file and a stethoscope?), but awoke enough to nod to her _Come to bed_.

Nico yawned and got up, swaying for a moment when he stood, before stumbling through the door and flopping face first into the mattress. Percy unconsciously grabbed him and pulled him near. She followed, Will´s steps behind her, and without thinking she snuggled against Nico´s other side. Will´s pants hit the ground clattering, then he was behind her, pulling the blanket from her couch above them.

She noticed Will´s breath in her neck and Nico´s arm over hers and Will´s head, listened to Percy´s snoring, but before realizing the whole situation she cuddled deeper into Nico and fell back asleep.

__________

 

Thalia once had said, that behind Annabeth´s stern expression, her sharp, analyzing mind and the (sometimes scary) determined attitude, there were hidden a part of her, a dreamer. A little kid, looking at the world and imagining fairytales, marveling at the beauty of things, who just wanted to watch the wonders behind the super-sized windows she was sitting at.

Annabeth had blinked surprised, and involuntarily thought of brown eyes and tender hands. She had felt guilty, thinking of him, when her girlfriend was standing in front of her with a gentle smile. But he had said something similar - they had been lying in bed, his lips on her cheek and his forehead against hers, his hands caressing her hair -, about an amazed girl, looking out of a window.

Back then, she hadn´t understood why he said it like it was something remarkable, because how could anyone look at him and not be amazed? How should someone look at the old temples and columns and not be fascinated by their beauty, hear Piper sing and not be enamored, stand in the ocean and not be stunned by its power and secrets?

She hadn´t understood it any better when Thalia said it, because Thalia´s smile was something so bright and astonishing, what else she should do as to look at it and marvel? Because, _duh_.

 

So when she woke up, a heavy arm over her side and a chest pressed to her back, a mess of black hair tickling her chin and legs intertwined with hers, the air heavy, she lied with closed eyes and savored in amazement the warmth and the soft sensation of not being alone.

She opened her eyes, still half in her dream, and watched the moment.

Percy lied sprawled out on his back like a starfish, open-mouthed (probably the source of the morning breath), his left arm over her and Nico´s heads. Nico was curled into the curve Percy´s body painted from elbow to knee, facing her, his head nestled under her chin and his hands lying against her stomach. Will spooned her, his nose smooching with her neck. She was squeezed between them.

How could someone not just look at the beauty of these three.

She carefully wriggled herself out of their embrace and sat on the edge of the bed. She considered getting her camera. Then she padded in the other room, leaving the door ajar.

She didn´t find it at first, because her music was a mess, a chaos of mp3s and unlabeled CDs. The coffee was done by the time she finished her drowsy searching through the files on her laptop and then the box of CDs.

She filled her favorite mug with coffee, sugar, and milk, while her small old stereo beeped and rustled alive. The sun streamed through the windows, dust dancing in the rays.

The song drifted through the room, slowly and gentle. She danced slow-paced in the light and bathed in the sound, sluggishly drinking her coffee, her face towards the sun.

She had dreamed about him, brown eyes and tender hands, how he had hummed this against her skin, leisured kisses on her lips and nose and cheeks. She had worn his hoodie and he one of hers, the hoods over their heads, and the bed cover over their entangled legs. She had felt home.

She felt home then, in her flat, the light, the melody, with the boys sleeping in the room next door.

The world were so beautiful, she could only stare.

_________________________

 

The boys awoke, one by one.

Percy sneaked out of the bed first, just in briefs, when she poured her second cup of coffee. He laid his forehead against her shoulder. She smiled and got him a cup too, which he accepted gratefully, his fingers clinging to the porcelain.

She made another round of coffee by the time Will went past them to the bathroom.

He came back, looking not really more awake, but sat next to her on the futon on the floor, squinting in the light, and she shared her cup with him.

When he finally emerged, Nico stared for a while, her big shirt falling over his thighs (he looked like a little boy searching for his mother in the mall), until Percy patted the spot next to him and then they all sat in the sunlight, drinking coffee and listening to the music.

__________

 

Percy asked after she finished showering and Nico and Will disappeared in the bathroom. She was naked safe her towel and stood in front of her wardrobe.

“Wanna go to the beach?”

(It should be weird, all that, them and her, them sharing a bed, her and Percy having sex just a couple of hours ago, Nico´s hands on her stomach and Will´s nose in her neck, and it probably was, but Annabeth felt nothing but peace and a light amusement (because she could vividly imagine Piper´s reaction). She waited for the anxiety and unease to seep in, to freak out, but nothing came. It was like thinking about Bill and herself, like: she knew the majority wouldn´t understand it, wouldn´t approve of it, would gossip, but it didn´t feel wrong for even a sec and she was so indifferent about the opinion of others that she merely shrugged at the thought.)

Thinking about it, she looked at him – the hickeys all over his neck and shoulders, matching the ones decorating her body, how he was draped on her bed, face in his hands, watching her.  

“Yeah”, she simply said. He grinned brightly.

Then he inhaled sharply when she let the towel fall to the floor. She smirked at him and he blushed, but didn´t look away.

__________

 

On the way to the beach she called Jason. They met on the promenade, the four of them still munching their take-away breakfast (muffins, donuts and oranges). Nico greeted him with a lazy _mornin`,_ while Jason eyed their constellation suspiciously.

 _“_ It´s three p.m., man”, he only said in the end. Annabeth smiled shyly at him. He would ask her later about it, about them and her.

They played in the water for a while, chasing each other in the shallow water, shrieking every time they got hit by water.

Jason and she sat side by side, eating the cookies he brought, and watched Will fleeing from Nico, hysterically yelling for help, before he was tackled in the sand and Nico jumped on him. Percy, Will and she joined the volleyball game of some kids. Jason did embarrassing loudly Piper´s old cheerleading routine she had done for him in high school – changing “ _the amazing Grace_ ” to “ _the dramatic Chase_ ” - and Nico laughed so hard, he fell over a sand castle behind him. She and Nico tried to fly a kite she had found, but were dramatically unlucky.

As Nico, Will and Jason built a sandcastle big enough to host a family of cats, Percy joined her on a dune several yards away. They sat in silence for a moment, the evening sun warm on their faces, dying the black behind their eyelids to a bright red.

(He broke the silence first.

“This is nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Am I the only one who finds the weird connection of Jason to Nico to me to you and back to Jason weird?”

 “No. I felt like freaking out last week. Not sure, if I´m completely over it.”

“Good. It´s creepy.”

“Nah. More like suspiciously random.”

“Same suspiciously random like you and me meeting on the other end of the country?”

“No, _that´s_ creepy.”

“Ha, more like you were creepy, staring at me and Nico.”

“Well, you´re hot.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Creeper.”)

The others eventually finished their castle and after several selfies with and in it, they sat with them in the sand.

They must have looked like a scene from an indie road movie, Will and Jason smoking and chatting, looking like models for the new hipster fashion line, then Annabeth in a ratty hoodie, peeling an orange, next to Percy who hummed a strange melody, and in the end Nico, reading a magazine he stole from her bathroom, all of them barefoot.

It felt like the last time she had been together in New York with Piper, Jason, Leo and Reyna, after her graduation, sitting on the roof, watching the sunset. She was not as tired as back then, but exactly as content. It was one of these moments and days you want to last forever (to fulfil the cliché of the sun and sand and barefootness), that you stuff in your box of happy memories, to look at it when you´re miserable so you can be bitter about your current situation. (Which was probably a very cynical way of thinking when you´re still _making_ the happy memory.)

She shared her orange with Percy.

_________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Bedrooms Hymns of Florence + the machine


End file.
